Minimally invasive procedures have been implemented in a variety of medical settings, e.g., for vascular interventions, such as angioplasty, stenting, embolic protection, electrical heart stimulation, heart mapping and visualization, and the like. These procedures generally rely on accurately navigating and placing instruments within a patient's vasculature.
There are many risks involved with advancing instruments through a patient's vasculature. For example, a catheter or other instrument may dissect or otherwise damage a wall of a vessel or other body lumen, for example, as the instrument passes through narrow passages and/or tortuous anatomy, e.g., involving sharp bends. Such instruments also risk dislodging embolic material or even perforating body lumens.
In addition, it is often desirable to access body structures with precision such that an instrument or agent may be delivered precisely to a target location, e.g., where the instrument or agent may have diagnostic or therapeutic efficacy.
It is also often desirable to access very small vessels or other body lumens deep within a body, e.g., within a patient's heart, for example, to place a ventricular pacing lead within a coronary vein. However, instrument(s) used to access the vessels, e.g., a guide sheath, lead, and the like, may have a relatively large cross-section and/or may have relatively blunt and/or stiff distal tips, making it difficult to advance such instruments as deeply as desired into such small vessels. In some cases, it is desirable to access smaller side branches, e.g., off of the coronary veins, which may require bending and/or tracking an instrument through tortuous vasculature without causing kinks or torsion load problems.
Accordingly, apparatus, systems, and methods for delivering instruments and/or agents into blood vessels or other body lumens and/or for otherwise accessing vessels or other body lumens would be useful.